Last Friday, on May 30, North Korea conducted three missile tests. According to a military source, the missiles were either the same type as the Soviet-made Styx surface-to-surface missile with a 40 kilometer-range launched in March or short-range missiles of a similar sort. Other sources identify the missiles as ship-to-ship missiles and to be of a variety of a former type made by the Soviet Union. Reportedly two of the three missiles have misfired.It is assumed that the launches were part of a routine training and were not intended to provoke the south, since the missiles were fired well away from contested wasters off the western coast.
An ease of tension can also be observed a bit westward at the Taiwan Strait. Chinese leaders told Taiwan's ruling Nationalist Party they would reduce the number of missiles aimed at the self-ruled island it sees as its own, a party official said on Monday in another sign of détente. China did not set a timeline or estimate how many of its about 1,300 cruise missiles and SRBMs might be removed.
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"... the launches were part of a routine training and were not intended to provoke the south ..."
ReplyDeleteAs to "provocation", provocateur seems never want to be provocated, but it was a a pick-off throw.
Background can be indirectly explained by a commentary of Rodong Sinmun as follows:
"According to reports of the paper [Rodong Sinmun], the United States and the South Korea held a joint military exercise recently, using advanced weapons such as F-16 and A-10 fighters, AH-64 helicopters and M-1 tanks."
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/04/content_8312264.htm